My main takeaway is this: Diets don’t work because hating ourselves and depriving ourselves can’t possibly lead to the happiness we’re seeking. And I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that a woman who’s dieting thinks she will be much happier when she’s done dieting and has lost the weight.

The process of how we eat is just as important as the outcome.

This goes hand in hand with an Internet Business Mastery podcast I listened to, where one of the topics they talked about was learning to enjoy the process rather than focusing on the outcome, or buying into the arrival fallacy – the notion that you’ll be happy when you {fill in the blank}.

So now when I’m on the treadmill, I’m thinking about how good it feels to get my heart rate up, to be moving, rather than counting the minutes until I can get off. I try not to think about losing weight, but rather about nourishing my body with tasty, healthy food – taking care of my own health as much I take care of my children’s health.

Comments

I’m doing the same thing right now, trying to balance the mental with the physical, all with the focus of “don’t beat myself up.” I’m very quick to do that! I just finished a book called Eat, Move, Sleep and every single thing in it made so much sense. It’s all connected, and even little steps/changes can make a big difference.